Presidential politics came to roost in southern Utah in 1996, as President Clinton announced the creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The move, seen as Clinton's pursuit of the environmental vote, left a bitter taste in many Utahns' mouths while eliciting cheers from others. It was undoubtedly the biggest story of the year for Utah but certainly not the only one.

National attention came as the debate about gay-lesbian clubs in Utah schools brought protests from students to the doorsteps of the Utah Capitol. The nation's media also focused on Utah as John Albert Taylor was executed by firing squad and the Army fired up its Tooele chemical weapons incinerator.Politics and money also colored the year, with Salt Lake Mayor Deedee Corradini the center of an investigation about acceptance of gifts, while the Salt Lake County attorney and county commissioners squabbled. The saga of Rep. Enid Greene and ex-husband Joe Waldholtz played out, while elections further entrenched Republicans in one of the nation's most Republican states. Utah's economy prospered but with at least one sour note - the mothballing of Micron's computer chip plant in Utah County.

Here are the top 10 stories as voted by Deseret News city desk editors:

1. Monument: President Clinton announced creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument at a September press conference in Arizona, to the chagrin of many southern Utahns, some of whom burned the president in effigy. Environmentalists hailed the decision but promised to fight for more wilderness designation.

2. Gay-lesbian clubs: The state gained national exposure as the Legislature banned gay clubs from schools following action by the Salt Lake School Board banning ex tracurricular clubs. Students at Salt Lake area high schools walked out in protest. A Senate caucus held a secret meeting to discuss the issue. The ACLU charged the meeting was illegal.

3. Gifts: Salt Lake Mayor Deedee Corradini was dogged by controversy surrounding her acceptance of $201,000 in gifts from big-name donors. It was later learned she solicited the gifts while she had $360,000 in a retirement account.

4. Transportation: Overcrowded highways along the Wasatch Front forced the governor and Legislature to address raising taxes to pay for a controversial fast-track rebuilding of I-15 in northern Utah in time for the 2002 Winter Olympics. In the meantime, Congress approved funding for Salt Lake County's proposed light-rail system.

5. Incinerator: The Army's Tooele County incinerator began destroying a large stock pile of chemical weapons in August. A former manager questioned safety at the fa cility in a memo released in November.

6. Sparring: Salt Lake County Attorney Doug Short and the County Commission engaged in months of bickering, accusations, verbal sparring and court battles.

7. Micron: Micron mothballed its Utah County plant, then under construction, in Feb ruary. A weak memory chip market may forever delay the plant's opening.

8. Execution: Jon Albert Taylor was executed by firing squad on Jan. 20 while human -rights groups protested the execution. Legislators mulled removing the firing s quad as an execution method.

9. Election: In November elections, Rep. Bill Orton lost in the 3rd Congressional D istrict to Chris Cannon, while Republican Merrill Cook finally won an election.

Mike Leavitt retained the governorship by a record margin while Attorney General Jan Graham was the only Democrat elected to statewide office. Bob Dole took Utah in the presidential election.

10. Greene: The curtain closed on the Enid Greene and Joe Waldholtz saga with Joe in jail and divorced. Enid is out of Congress with no indictment.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Deaths '96

- Gov. J. Bracken Lee, Former Utah governor

- T.H. Bell, Educator and former Cabinet member

- Lowell Bennion, Educator

- Peter Billings Sr., Attorney

- Berenice Jewett Bradshaw, Philanthropist

- Elder Victor L. Brown, LDS leader

- Judge Sherm Christensen, Federal judge

- Henry "Hank" Engh, "Petunia King"

- Richard Hemingway, Banker

- Sterling McMurrin, Scholar

- Ralph G. Rodgers, Actor-director

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People '96

Carolyn Tanner Irish became the new Episcopal bishop of Utah.

Merrill Bateman was installed as the new president of BYU.

BYU head basketball coach Roger Reid is fired by the school.

Former Utahn Brent Richey was killed in the TWA Flight 800 explosion.

Bessy and Doris Gonzales, conjoined twins from Honduras, were separated in a series of marathon operations at Primary Childrens Medical Center.

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Landmarks '96

- Plans for a new 700-room downtown hotel were announced.

- The LDS Church announced plans for a new meeting hall in downtown Salt Lake City and dedicated Mount Timpanogos Temple.

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Along with the Top 10 stories, other news shaped and mirrored the life of the state in 1996.

January

Centennial: Utah's 100th birthday was kicked off with a Jan. 4 re-enactment on Salt Lake City's Main Street of the receipt of the telegram announcing statehood. Parades, balls, county histories and other activities were planned all year to celebrate Utah's entrance into the Union. Minorities charged that the celebrations ignored them.

Mine: Eighteen-year-old Jeremiah Etherington fell down an abandoned mine in Tooele County; his family later recovered his body.

Crash: Four top executives of Salt Lake-based Swire Coca-Cola USA and two executives from Scopes-Garcia-Carlisle Advertising were killed in a plane crash near Malad, Idaho.

Avalanche: An avalanche destroyed Utah County's historic Bridal Veil Falls tram and resort.

Buyout: Corel Corp. bought WordPerfect from Novell.

February

LDS Church: A commemoration in Nauvoo, Ill., marked the 150th anniversary of the exodus of Brigham Young and his followers. Near the same time, Latter-day Saints living outside the United States became the majority of the church's worldwide population of 9.4 million. The LDS Church welcomed an average of 950 new members each day - or one new member every 90 seconds.

Legislature: Legislators closed their 1996 session, giving a tax cut and increasing state budgets by more than 12 percent but not as much as requested.

March

Basketball: All-American Keith Van Horn led the Utes the the WAC title and the NCAA's Sweet 16.

Wilds: Utah's wilderness bill, which called for 2.1 million acresx of wilderness, died in Congress. The bill failed because of vigorous, well-organized opposition by environmentalists and some Democratic maneuvering aimed at embarrassing GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole by trying to add an amendment to raise the minimum wage.

April

Arguellas: State prison inmate Roberto Arguellas admitted to killing Margo Bond, West Valley City, in 1992, and three teenagers.

Freemen: A Utah woman and her children were holed up in the Freeman compound in Jordan, Mont., and were the first people to leave the ranch in months in April.

Lafferty: In Utah County, Ronald Lafferty was found guilty a second time of the 1984 murders of his sister-in-law and her daughter and again was sentenced to death.

May

Hijacking: A 15-year-old boy wounded a school-bus driver and drove the bus on a 30-block chase with police. The bus crashed into a home after the boy died of a self-inflicted wound.

Playoffs: The Utah Jazz came within jone game of making the NBA Finals before losing to Seattle. Soon after, the Jazz unviel a new logo.

June

Russia: Russian security chief Alexander Lebed drew U.S. protests when he called Mormons and other-Russian religious groups "filth and scum."

Championship: Fans cheered the Utah Grizzlies' second-straight championship. The Grizzlies defeated the Orlando Solar Bears 3-2 in overtime to win their second Turner Cup.

Grand Canyon: A varsity Scout from Bountiful died from heat exhaustion during a scheduled six-day hike through the Grand Canyon. David Phillips, 15, was part of a group of four adults and six youths from the North Canyon 3rd Ward in Bountiful.

Settlement: The Kolob Canyon drowning suit was settled out of court.

Sundance: The Sundance administration building burned in a fire that caused an estimated $2.5 million in damage. The early morning fire raged through the all-wood building - one of the original resort structures.

July

Electricity: Utah Power intentionally blacked out residences during the summer following a state-approved program to keep power on in a majority of south-east Sandy homes during times of peak use. An unrelated power outage swept over most of the western United States, leaving an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million people without electricity.

Wildfires: Utah experienced what some officials called the worst wildfire season in the state's history throughout the summer.

Missing money: St. George armored car driver Elbert Eugene Randall disappeared and later was charged with stealing $823,000.

August

Shooting: Teenager Zach Snarr was brutally killed. His companion played dead and avoided the same fate.

Hazing: Five students were suspended from the Jordan School District after an incident in the Hillcrest High School locker room.

Pioneer Park: In a surprise move, Mayor Deedee Corradini closed Pioneer Park for cleaning in August and then set up police patrols to keep drugs and transients out. Area social service agencies and businesses complained about the move.

September

Olympics: Utahns learned from Atlanta's mistakes during the Summer Games. Throughout the year, Utah's Olympic organizers continued work on the 2002 Winter Games, including near-completion of the bobsled-luge run in Summit County. The Salt Lake Organizing Committee negotiated a marketing agreement expected to be signed by year's end.

October

Robberies: Teens, some of them Granger High School football players, were charged in a string of armed robberies.

November

Wilderness: A federal judge halted Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's re-inventory of Utah wilderness after the state and other parties sued.

Sanctions: The Weber State University basketball program was investigated by the NCAA, which imposed sanctions.

Trial: The North Star child-abuse cases came to an end with most suspects pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges and one tried and found guilty.

December

Cougars: Brigham Young University football team beat the University of Utah for the first time in four years, was ranked in the Top 10 and beat Wyoming for the WAC title. The team was denied an Alliance Bowl berth and was instead invited to the Cotton Bowl.

Condors: California condors were introduced to Arizona's Vermillion Cliff's despite a failed attempt by San Juan County to stop the release.

Liquor: The Logan City Council voted to tighten its liquor laws.

Streak: The Phoenix Suns broke the Jazz's 15-game winning streak.

Tragedy: Members of the popular singing family - David Goodman, 12, LeAnne Goodman, 10, and Peter Goodman, 11 - died in a crash at a Sandy intersection.

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Oddities '96

- A woman who pretended to be an abandoned boy so she could get a place to stay for Christmas pleaded guilty to two reduced charges in January. Birdie Jo Hoaks, 25, said she was sorry for the ruse and never intended for her story to receive so much attention. The woman claimed to have been abandoned at the Salt Lake bus station two days before Christmas and presented a letter to workers at the Department of Human Services that said the "boy" had been abandoned because the father had AIDS and the parents could no longer care for "him." The story generated calls of compassion from across the country, but the ruse unraveled when authorities discovered "he" was really a woman.

- Crop circles were found in Cache County in August. Investigators couldn't determine whether they were linked to UFOs or pranksters.

- Utahns gawked at a lunar eclipse above the state's skies in September.

- A horse patrol returned to Salt Lake City's Pioneer Park, the first since 1915.

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Who we were

In June, Utah became the 34th state in the nation to pass the 2 million population mark. It is estimated the state's population will reach 3 million in the year 2018. The state's rapid population growth was attributed in large part to the state's highest-in-the-nation fertility rate. It is estimated that 28,000 babies were born in Utah in 1996. That's on top of the net increase of 14,000 new residents who moved here in 1996.

Publisher Morgan Quitno said Iowa has replaced Utah as the most livable state. Morgan Quitno put Utah at the top of the list in 1995 but moved the Beehive State to fifth place in 1996 behind Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin.

In March, U.S. News and World Report said Salt Lake City's housing market was the hottest in the country. The news may have been good for home sellers, but those trying to buy found things a bit pricey.

Utah looked good on paper - No. 6 in the Kids Count national ranking for the second year in a row. But child advocates warned that a lot of misery is hidden in the numbers of a state that could do better.

Utah's explosive economy produced employment growth of more than 5 percent, personal income growth over 9 percent and an unemployment rate that reached a 42-year low of 2.9 percent in August.

Kane County became part of the Flagstaff, Ariz., metropolitan area; Logan and St. George could be classified in the near future as metro areas.

ReliaStar Financial Corp. named Utah as one of its top 100 financially secure places to live.

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Salt Lake City-Provo was named the No. 1 "entrepreneurial hot spot" in the United States by Kiplinger's magazine.

Salt Lake City was recognized as one of the top 10 places to live and work in the United States by Employment Review magazine.

The Salt Lake City-Ogden metro area dropped in Places Rated Almanac rankings from 8 in 1993 to 26 in 1996.

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta found Utah's death rate from tobacco smoking and the state's adult smoking rate, were the lowest in the country. For both measures, Nevada's rates were the highest. The CDC found that only 15.1 percent of Utah adults smoke. Utah's death rate for causes related to smoking was 218 per 100,000 residents in 1990.

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